About

Hisham and Sila has been writing stuff down on this weblog since 2005. Sometimes they post photos of family, sometimes they talk about film, books and music, sometimes there is artwork and stuff about tabletop gaming.

While awaiting the next time I travel to Kuala Lumpur and by chance the GOKL group is free to congregate for a roleplaying session of Star Wars Edge of the Empire, I have created an intro video of our campaign Modesty Blazing, also using OpenShot Video Editor.

Video making is fun. I should make more videos.

The music is edited from "The Occupation of Balmorra" by Lennie Moore, Mark Griskey and Jesse Harlin for The Old Republic game and Kevin Kiner's The Clone Wars track "Buzz Droids" from the episode "Sabotage".

I've been playing with OpenShot Video editor on this Linux Mint laptop.

I downloaded the one in the repository, which was v1.4. Keyframe animation was a joy with it, but I was not able to copy and paste animation properties from one video clip to another.

I did a little digging and I discovered that OpenShot 2.0 had been released recently and this version allowed me to copy paste animation properties. After the upgrade, I discovered that I had less control of the animation than I did with 1.4. (For example, I could go to and easily set the values for the start and the end of the horizontal position each clip with 1.4.)

In any case, this is the result of my tinkering about with OpenShot. I am certain I will get the hang of it as I keep using the program.

Time is the Hunter

Episode 02: Stalk the Lower Levels

Last time onTime is the Hunter, Irfan played bounty hunter Jax Hunt who signed up with the Byblos chapter of the House Benelex Bounty Hunting Guild at Tower 214.

Jax Hunt arrived the next day at Abbit Mowba's office. The signs of battle from when Jax saved Mr. Mowba from a disgruntled bounty hunter the previous day were still there. But Mowba seemed distracted.

"Hi Mr. Mowba," Jax greeted the Aqualish manager.

"Jax," he stuttered. "I... There seems to be a problem."

"What is it?"

"There is a new mark. The bounty is right here on Byblos. In Byblos Spaceport Tower 214 itself. Way down dozens of levels in Brown-212. It's a difficult mark. I sent three bounty hunters after the mark. They should have returned yesterday evening."

"I'll take the bounty," Jax exclaimed.

"I usually do not send rookie hunters out after this kinds of hunts."

"I can handle it."

Abbit Mowba hit a sequence of buttons on his office table and considered Jax. "Okay. I'm out of datacards and my table is a mess. Go find the hunters I dispatched: Tulon Tash, Arbo Kee and Wex Ringthreader. They will have details of the mark on them. They should still be down at Brown-212."

Jax smiled at the Aqualish and headed out for his first hunt.

Paper miniatures standing by to be deployed. Not all were used by the end of the session.

Imperial Entanglements

Trying to leave Blue-772 was a chore. (Bureaucracy skill failure of 9 point from a Difficulty of 20 - Byblos was an unfamiliar locale for Jax.)

For some reason Imperial stormtroopers were patrolling the city. There was a squad of four troops menacing the northern blast doors of the main pedesterian thoroughfare through the city, right between the park - illuminated by the morning sun of Byblos through the outer transparisteel wall which revealed the vista outside - and the many levels of terraced office buildings and apartment blocks propped up against the opposite wall across the large space that was Blue-772.

Jax thought he would have no trouble going through the troops, but as he walked past the lead stormtrooper barked, "Halt!"

All the way from Star Wars: The Clone Wars are the Coruscant Security Force personnel stationed deep in the underworld sectors and here are some paper miniatures if you want to play one, or have a whole squad as backup (or as opposition).

THEN

It was back in early October after Raya Haji vacation when I began to fall ill with fever, coughs and sniffles. I blew my nose at work and sprayed the toilet at the office with a bowl full of blood. That never happened before. I thought that such amount of blood should not be outside of any human body.

The pain was strong and constant. It speared up into the right eye and down into the right side of the mouth. The smell of blood from my nose and mouth was incessant. (My review of Andy Weir's novel The Martianmight have been written when I was right in the middle of it as evident from the last paragraph.)

One quick visit to a clinic near home, and a doctor diagnosed just a nosebleed perhaps because of my vigorous nose blowing over the days. A second visit later in the week, and I was referred to the ENT Specialist Clinic at Hospital Tuanku Fauziah.

Endoscopy turned up one nasal polyps. A scheduled CT scan a week later discovered a second polyps. This was escalation. But by this time, I had expectorated a mass of blood and mucus (see end of entry) which had suddenly neutralised whatever that triggered the pain. A steroid spray was bestowed unto me to keep the polyps from flaring up again.

The removal of the polyps one way or another was then scheduled for early March.

NOW

It was now early March, and after 43 years of avoiding it, I finally had to be hospitalised for a major surgery.

I was to undergo a functional endoscopic sinus surgery, followed by a septoplasty - apparently I have a deviated septum and no one noticed over the years.

Atok and Opah visited from Sitiawan to ensure Irfan would be okay at home and ready for school while Ain took care of me overnight in the hospital ward. So on the first day, I registered and I was assigned to a bed. It was a nice bed, but it had no inlaid diagnostic scanners, no automatic expert systems to inject me the right drugs at the right time, no wireless connection so I could access and read whatever medical data it has on me.

Apparently I was expected to just lie on the bed.

I had neighbours in nearby beds and later than afternoon Irfan visited me after school along with Ain, Opah and Atok. In the meantime, I spent my time reading the last half of Abbadon's Gate. That evening, after Atok, Opah and Irfan had returned home, it was just Ain and I.

Hospital food here was not too bad. I would say I found it somewhat tasty. Who said hospital food was unpalatable? I hope that they had minimised exposure to the Phoebe protomolecules in the food, or my next x-ray scan will be quite mutagenically interesting.